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After a tree falls in Santa Monica, a garage is reborn as a 600-square-foot family gathering spot.

Architect Tamira Sawatzky used Ikea components—one-inch Lagan butcher block countertops and inexpensive Ekby Lerberg brackets—when designing the bookshelves along the living room wall in the home/studio he designed for himself and his wife in Toronto.

An outdoor shower set in the timber-clad walkway offers another way for the homeowners and their guests to connect with nature, and an easy way to rinse off after swimming.

Vines climb along the frame of a new circular window in the kitchen. The pink and green floor tiles are original.

Architect Hernán Landolfo combined two adjacent houses on a sun-dappled street in Buenos Aires to create a home for himself, his partner, Lucía Gentile, their daughter, Luisa, and the family dog, Roca.

“They are quite cute and very wild,” Leah says of her three kids. The hot tub and surrounding deck were the starting points for the exterior remodel, with the transformed outdoor space incorporating numerous areas for the children to play and explore.

When Libby May and Eoghan Mahony purchased a 1950s post-and-beam house in Los Angeles’ Santa Monica Canyon, they envisioned someday transforming the garage and adjoining workshop into livable space, with an office for each of them and a family room they could share with their sons, Wes, 14, and Duncan, 10.

For more than 70 years, claims have persisted, without much evidence, that a home in Portland, Oregon, is a lost work by Frank Lloyd Wright. Regardless of authorship, the structure—a flat-roofed, cedar and glass ranch—endures as a sterling example of postwar American architecture. Its recessed entryway features panes of translucent glass.

Front facade of the house

The steel-clad Rolling Huts designed by Olson Kundig Architects in Manzama, Washington, sit lightly on the land thanks to wheels that allow the tiny residences to "hover" above the site, optimizing views of the landscape. Photo by Derek Pirozzi.

In the kitchen, minimalism prevails. Jared notes that the use of plywood was loosely inspired by design seen in the 1960s Sonoma County Sea Ranch community. "It's something that one of my heroes, [architect] Barbara Bestor has done very well," he says.

The kitchen features custom millwork with opal glass pulls, recycled glass terrazzo countertops and backsplash, copper plumbing, and a showstopping Lacanche range in Provence yellow.

The kitchen features all-new appliances and opens up to a large balcony overlooking the backyard.

Classic Ceramics wall tiles are combined with Caroma Cube ceramic basins in the bathrooms.

The slats on the window offer solar protection and privacy. “Before the slats were installed, it really felt like you were just living on the street,” says Vanbesien.

The slim, steel staircase is designed to allow maximum light and sight-lines.